"I couldn't even save the poor cat."
That was the last thought that ran through my head before I died. I fell... out of a tree... trying to save a kitten. Less than an hour before I... died, an elderly lady approached me urgently.
"Henny, I need help!" She tried to shout the words but in her old age, her vocal cords betrayed her. It came out as nothing but a mere whisper. It was Miss Barbra, my elderly neighbor. I knew her well, we often shared a glass of chilled red wine by the fireplace in her house when she was feeling lonely. Her husband passed recently and since, she's needed someone to chat with in order to keep her sanity in check. She cleared her throat and spoke again,
"HENNY, I NEED--" This time she burst out in a loud shout, turning the heads of the people walking in and out of the convenience store behind us. I quickly cut her off before she could cause a scene. Despite her semi-decrepit appearance, Barbra had a strong personality-- and an even stronger voice. She was quick to engage in loud debates with me over controversial topics. Although they weren't really debates considering we tended to lean on the same side of the argument anyway, she just screamed so loud it made them feel like debates.
"What is it Barbra?" I smiled gently at her and she seemed to relax a little, loosening her shoulders. She swiftly pulled a picture from her pocket handing it to me. I took it and examined it fondly. It was of her precious cat Bertha. She was white and fluffy with not just a little pudge-- Miss Barbra fed her well. Spending so much time with Barbra, I'd grown attached to the troublemaking cat, it reminded me of myself, always causing problems for those around them. He smiled and looked back at Barbra.
"She's stuck, help her please!" Barbra pleaded with me, genuinely worried about her cat. Bertha had always been causing problems for Barbra so she'd gotten used to it ignoring them mostly. To see her this distraught meant Bertha was truly in trouble.
"Where is she? Take me." At that, Barbra grabbed my arm and dragged me to the back of the convenience store. Behind was a large library with a park just outside. Kids played and parents chatted amongst each other but one group caught my attention quick. A large gathering of parents and children stood around a large tree that sat right outside of the library. It had to be at least twice as tall as the library itself. They were peering up into the branches of the tree.
I followed their gazes but I saw nothing but limbs on a tree with few brown leaves. Barbra tugged at my arm pointing at a spot on the tree. It was hard to tell exactly where she was pointing but I noticed a large branch sticking out from the tree that was in the general direction. I inspected the branch but saw no sign of Bertha. Then I heard a meow, it came from higher on the tree, near the top. I gasped as I watched Bertha strut along a branch, fearless of the great height beneath her. I grimaced as she wobbled and nearly fell, letting out a yelp before restabilizing herself and sitting neatly on the end of the branch.
"Barbra, we have to call the--" My sentence was cut short as the branch Bertha sat on cracked and fell, leaving Bertha plummeting toward the ground. She grasped out with her paws and managed to grab hold of a branch, dangling high above the ground. She yelped in pain as her legs strained to hold her up. She tried pulling herself onto the branch but to no avail. She meowed desperately and loudly in pain and fear.
"Dammit, I have to go get her." At that thought I ran toward the tree and began climbing. I carefully check every branch before letting it support my weight so I didn't fall. The cat may have been chubby but it didn't compare to the weight a full grown adult, step on the wrong branch and I could fall, seriously hurting myself. Suddenly, as I was checking the next branch, I heard a crack and looked up at Bertha as she fell again, catching herself on a second branch. She screeched in pain as she tried to keep her paws from slipping. I had to speed up, giving up on checking sturdy looking branches and only checking the flimsier looking ones. I climbed, quickly reaching the initial branch I had spotted before. I grabbed the large, sturdy-looking branch confidently pulling myself up. As I lifted my leg to step onto the branch, it snapped. My entire weight had been on the branch and I plummeted with it. I grasped at branches as Bertha did, trying desperately to stop the fall. It didn't work. Branches I grabbed left cuts and splinters in my hands and only broke as I fell.
"That cat made this look easy." As I kept grasping at branches hoping one might be able to hold me up, something slammed into my back. It sent a shock through my body, knocking the wind out of me entirely. I opened my eyes to see the stares of parents and children alike looking terrified. I was on the ground... alive!
"MOVE! GET OUT OF THE WAY" Someone from the crowd shouted and other screams followed as the group around me dispersed. I was left looking into the sky with blurry vision. It was hard to focus but I saw something falling down toward me. I couldn't roll away or move any of my limbs, they must've all broken on impact. I just laid there, watching the object fall toward me. As it got closer, I saw it.
"That damn branch." The branch broke in the first place causing me to fall was now plummeting at crazy speed right at me. As I finally regained my breath, the branch slammed straight through my stomach, planting itself firmly in the ground beneath me. I coughed up blood as every ounce of air that I just regained was squeezed out of me again in one big burst. The pain was so immense that I couldn't even think, blood pooled in my mouth as I coughed and choked on blood and spit. As blood flowed out of my mouth and pooled around my head, I felt my organs beginning to fail one by one. First my kidneys went, "I didn't even know I could feel those." Then my liver, my lungs and finally I felt my heart begin to slow. A creeping chill shuddered through my body, the blood in my veins flowing slower and slower. "I couldn't even save the poor cat." I closed my eyes as the blood in my veins slowly came to a halt and I died.
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My eyes shot open, it was pitch black and I could feel every ounce of pain still. It was excruciating, even worse than the pain I felt before I died. "Did I die?" I tried to move my arm and as I did, a fiery pain shot straight through it into my whole body. "Is this hell?" I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up in hell, I tried my best in life to be a kind and hard working guy but honestly I wasn't the most virtuous person. I was born and raised Catholic but stopped going to mass when I was about 12, I then lost my virginity when I was 16 and didn't slow down from there. By the time I was 19 there was even a pregnancy scare. It was my ex who had told me she was pregnant, right as I was about to break up with her-- turns out she was lying to get me to stay. I also smoke a lot of dope... smoked I guess and I'm no stranger to the party life. "I guess being kind and working hard isn't enough to get you into Heaven, maybe my parents were right about me."
I tried to sit up. I tensioned my core and made an attempt but every little muscle movement sent shivering pain through my entire skeleton. Frustrated, I tried lifting just my head instead. As I did, I bumped it on something above me. I couldn't see what it was but it sent a pain down my whole body that seemed to reverberate and keep getting worse. It was the worst pain I had ever experienced in my life, so bad in fact that I shot up as if waking up from a nightmare. Whacking my head even harder this time. I felt a snap in my neck as my head shot back, detaching itself and rolling under my body. Unable to maintain the semi-upright position my body flopped back onto my head. The impact alone felt like it had enough force to crush my skull completely. I tried to scream but nothing came out, not even grunts or gurgles, complete silence. The pain was agonizing and it dragged on for days, no weeks... maybe even years. I couldn't tell how long had passed before suddenly light flooded the space I was in.
"What the he--" As I got my sight back due to the newfound light, I noticed I could only see out of one eye and the other... was laying on the ground right in front of my head. I tried to scream, but still nothing came. I noticed the wall behind the eyeball was made of wood, as well as the ground beneath me. Dirt was scattered all over the floor and engrained into the walls, "Am I in a coffin?" Out of nowhere, a pale hand appeared, reaching down and grabbing the eyeball. "Wait! That's mine!" I tried to shout but again nothing came out, I gave up on trying to speak. The hand appeared again, feeling my face this time. I groaned internally in pain but I couldn't do anything to stop it. He then lifted my body and rolled it over onto its side. The pain was immense, renewed with even stronger intensity. My head was freed now though and I could see the long black sleeves that led up the arm attached to the hand. It grabbed my head by the hair but instead of my head lifting with his force, my hair pulled out with ease. Oddly, it didn't hurt, it felt almost... satisfying, like scratching an itch I didn't know I had. The hand gave up on the hair and simply palmed the top of my head like a basket ball. Rising out of the ground, I could see now that I was indeed laying in a coffin. In fact, part of my still laid there, motionless, on its side... my side against the wall. It was odd, even though my head was detached I could still feel my body but it felt distant. The distance didn't change the pain, however, with my body laying on its side like that, the pressure on my arm was incredibly painful. I instinctively tried to roll over to relieve the pain and my body suddenly jolted, flopping onto my back. The pain from the impact was great but, with my head free from the crushing weight of my body and my body free from the pressing pain of my head, it started to fade. Not much, it still hurt immensely but it felt like I could relax now finally after years of torture. The hand rotated my head to face the man attached to the hand. The sun blinded me momentarily but I shut my eye, blocking it. Even through my eyelid, the heat of the sun felt as though it threatened to melt my remaining eye right out of its socket. The man placed something on my face and I hesitantly opened my eye again. They were sunglasses, they blocked the sun enough for me to bear the pain and inspect the man holding my head. He was fair-skinned, in fact he was so pale that he looked like a skeleton. His face was even so gaunt it had looked like a skull. My eye began to droop as my body relaxed more and more, the pain easing ever-so slightly. I was exhausted, without being able to sleep for the years I was in that coffin, my body finally took the opportunity. As my eye closed slowly, my mind fading, following my body's lead, the man mouthed something I couldn't hear and his face shifted suddenly. The skin melted off of his face exposing the bare skeleton beneath... then, I fell asleep.